Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement about the fishery in the Great Slave Lake, and my colleague from the Deh Cho reminded me that they also boil that fish and it’s delicious that way as well. I have a question to the Minister of ITI about the current activities that they are doing with the fishery.
What are those monies that the Minister and the budget addressed the other day, what are the monies going towards to increase the production of the fishery in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The money that we have announced in this year’s budget, it’s about $1.7 million, will go toward upgrading the fleet on Great Slave Lake, a new marketing effort to get more product in the domestic market here in the Northwest Territories which we predict is somewhere around 500,000 to 750,000 pounds in addition to the 930,000 pounds that were taken from the lake last year.
Also, the key piece to this is the construction of an export grade new fish plant in Hay River. We’re going to try to leverage the dollars that we do have that you see in this year’s budget with monies from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, as well as CanNor. Those discussions are ongoing and we hope to see that come to fruition really soon. Thank you.
My next question for the Minister is about that marketing that he discussed. I know he’s talking about domestic marketing. I’m also concerned about marketing this product outside of the Northwest Territories.
Along with that marketing and pricing, what is the department doing to bring up the prices for the fishers to basically create an income and get paid for their good product?
Part of the funding that was announced in this year’s budget would include a marketing subsidy of 44 cents per kilogram for fishermen. It is believed that the domestic market would be much more lucrative for fishermen to sell their product in the local domestic market, Hay River, Yellowknife, Fort Smith, for example. Again, we have announced some money to help fishermen market their product here in the domestic market, which will put more money in fishermen’s pockets here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I know the department went throughout the Northwest Territories on their new Economic Opportunities Strategy and the fishery was one of the things that came forward from there.
What monies are they putting into this Economic Opportunities Strategy to help the fishers in this industry?
We did hear loud and clear, both in the North Slave region and in the South Slave region, the need to reinvigorate the commercial fishing industry on Great Slave Lake. That’s why, I believe, the cornerstone of the work of the EOS here initially is going to be to revitalize that fishery. We’ve got $1.7 million. We want to build a new fish plant in Hay River; we want to upgrade the fleet; we want to attract new fishermen to the industry; we want to keep the existing fishermen that we have; and we’re going to put our best effort into doing just that.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question is about the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and our work with them to do this marketing.
How much involvement has the Minister had with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation? Have we looked at that opportunity? Have we looked if that is a need? Do we really need them still? I know that’s been debated in the fishery quite a bit, but what is the department doing with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation?
I have met with the officials from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation last year. Our officials continue to dialogue with Freshwater. It is our hope that they will be a vital piece of the puzzle in the construction of a new export grade fish plant in Hay River. We want to work with them and we also want to work with CanNor to ensure that this happens.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
